Month: September 2022

DEEP UNCERTAINTIES. "Decision makers must understand inherent uncertainties surrounding scientific knowledge – including ‘known unknowns,’ or deep uncertainties. Yet, because many non-scientists perceive uncertainty as a lack of knowledge, communicating uncertainty to the public can lead to misunderstanding of core scientific conclusions." http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2014/events/communicating-science-society/ View in LinkedIn

MANUFACTROVERSY. "A manufactured controversy ... is a contrived controversy, typically motivated by profit or ideology, designed to create public confusion concerning an issue about which there is no substantial academic dispute. This concept has also been referred to as manufactured uncertainty." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufactured_controversy View in LinkedIn

"THREE RECENT EXAMPLES of manufactured controversy are global warming skepticism, AIDS dissent in South Africa, and the intelligent design movement ... The first of these has been called an “epistemological filibuster” because it magnifies the uncertainty surrounding a scientific truth claim in order to delay the adoption of a policy that is warranted by that science." http://lnkd.in/dazmtq2 View in LinkedIn

RECENT EXAMPLES CONTINUED. The "assault on the science of HIV/AIDS research ingeniously turned the scientific community’s values against it by drawing on the importance of rational open debate, a skeptical attitude, and the need for continued research." http://lnkd.in/dazmtq2 View in LinkedIn

RECENT EXAMPLES CONTINUED. "A parallel case is being made by the intelligent design movement in conjunction with its “teach the controversy” campaign against evolutionary biology." http://lnkd.in/dazmtq2 View in LinkedIn

MANUFACTURED CONTROVERSY. "The formula is to amplify uncertainties, cherry-pick experts, attack individual scientists, marginalize the traditional role of distinguished scientific bodies and get the media to report "both sides" of a manufactured controversy." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufactured_controversy View in LinkedIn

"FALSE BALANCE ... is a real or perceived media bias, where journalists present an issue as being more balanced between opposing viewpoints than the evidence actually supports. Journalists may present evidence ... out of proportion to the actual evidence for each side, or may censor information which would establish one side's claims as baseless." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance View in LinkedIn

MANUFACTURED IGNORANCE: Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway's book, Merchants of Doubt. "In 1984 Seitz, Robert Jastrow and William Nierenberg founded the George C. Marshall Institute, which basically did for climate change what the Tobacco Institute had long been doing for cigarettes." http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/manufactured-ignorance View in LinkedIn

CIGARETTE STRATEGY. "Oreskes and Conway show that climate change was really a surrogate for larger fears of a regulatory state—a state seen as increasingly willing to curtail free-market liberties in the name of environmental protection. Environmentalism (and in particular climate science) was conjured up as the latest in a long line of threats to liberty." http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/manufactured-ignorance View in LinkedIn

EXTREMIST SCIENTISTS. "An elaborate network of extremist scientists, all with links to well-endowed “think tanks” such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute." Backed by none other than the Electric Power Research Institute, the Global Climate Coalition and the Tobacco Institute. http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/manufactured-ignorance View in LinkedIn